My failed attempts to grow potatoes in potato towers and grow bags

Posted on
Dec 26, 2016

A year or two back I built a couple of potato
towers.
Various magazines recommended this approach for growing red potatoes so
i decided to go all in. My two attempts to grow potatoes this way failed
miserably and resulted in a handful of potatoes during each growing
season. Not being one to accept failure I decided to try once more this
spring. This time I went with a smart pot and
used their suggested growing
method.

At first I thought I hit gold. My seed potatoes put on massive growth
and I was quick to back fill over the potatoes to allow more tubers to
form. Then it got hot and my red potatoes succumbed to heat and disease.
I ended up harvesting about 10 potatoes at the end of the season and
this is definitely the last time I try to grow them in towers and smart
pots.

My sweet potatoes on the other hand did fantastic and they appear to
handle heat and pests much better then red potatoes. I pulled up roughly
40lbs of potatoes this fall and these will definitely be a yearly
addition to the garden. If you’ve had success growing potatoes in towers
/ smart pots please let me know what you did to succeed. After three
attempts I’m throwing in the towel.